Latest in Games

Humdinger of a Move

  Jean-René Koch – Neil Carr French U21 Ch, Montpellier, 1987  (Notes by Neil Carr)      1 e4 g6 2 d4 Bg7 3 Nf3 d6 Readers of the last Kingpin will remember (to their cost!) that I was feeling like a right Pirc during the…

Read More

More Articles

Frog in the Throat

The late Neil Carr recounted this anecdote in Kingpin 12 (Autumn 1987).    The French International U-21 Championship held in Montpellier in April was a well-run 9 round tournament which produced some fine attacking chess. It was won by L. Stratil of Czechoslovakia (Strepsil to…

Read More

Great Swindles Of Our Time

  Neil Carr wrote some funny articles for Kingpin. His dynamic style of play, breezy sense of humour and fondness for excruciating wordplay made him an ideal contributor. This turbulent game appeared in Kingpin 11. The dubious honour of having contributed more to this section of Kingpin…

Read More

Neil Carr: A Natural

  Neil Carr, who has died suddenly at only 47, was one of the most gifted chess players to emerge from the English chess explosion of the late seventies and early eighties. A child prodigy, he won the British Under-11 Championship in 1978 and lifted…

Read More

Colin Crouch, 1956-2015

  Colin Crouch, who has died at the tragically young age of 58, had a magnificently mischievous sense of humour. He contributed several pieces to Kingpin, serious and funny, and wrote one of the wittiest parodies of a chess writer you are likely to read. An affable,…

Read More

Bad Men

  ‘Garry Kasparov may loathe him, but the grandmaster in him surely has to recognise that Putin operates more like a chess player than most of his fellow world leaders. He has a long-term objective – to rebuild Russian power. His core strategy is the…

Read More

Confessions of a Crooked Chess Master – Part 2

Michael Basman   International Intrigue   It was Hastings 1967-8 at the annual congress run by Frank Rhoden. I had not been doing particularly well after having bullied Frank into giving me a place in the tournament. ‘I’ve got to invite Keene, Hartston and Penrose,…

Read More

Confessions of a Crooked Chess Master – Part 1

Michael Basman   The Slippery Slope My first step along the road to perdition came in the London Under-14 Boys Championship in 1959 (in those days girls didn’t or couldn’t play chess). It was round 5 and I was playing J.N. Eyres of Colfe’s School…

Read More

Arrogance

  ‘Self-admiration is as a tape-worm of the brain. It particularly infests Chess-players and is rarely eradicated.’  William Norwood Potter British Chess Magazine (July 1883), p.244   ‘I was at a very high peak and felt invincible. Not only did this make me complacent, but it…

Read More

Zukertort Zigzagged

 Zukertort – Potter London, 1876 Black to play   Black has been gradually outplayed and is hanging on by his fingertips. He’s a pawn down, his queen is attacked, and the threat of a4-a5 seems terminal. After 36…Qe4 37 Qxe4 fxe4 38 a4 the pawn will…

Read More
slot gacor
ssh account
situs thailand slot gacor maxwin akunjp daftar slot gacor